salto

Forms

salto m (plural saltos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin saltus (“a jump, leap”), the action noun of saliō (“to jump”).^[2][3][4][5] The verb saltar continues the intensive saltō (“to dance; to hop”).^[2] DICCA-XV instead derives the noun from the verb, and Wiktionary treats it as a learned borrowing from Latin.^[6][1] The same word is Portuguese salto, Catalan salt, French saut, Italian salto and Romanian salt.^[7][8]

A Latin noun of the same form meaning “wooded pass, woodland pasture” gave the popular soto “grove by a river”, recorded from 929, and Portuguese souto.^[7][9][10] The REW keeps the two Latin words apart; according to Houaiss, Ernout and Meillet took them for one word.^[7][11]

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from *sal-je- and *sh₂l-ie/o- (“to jump”), and compares Ancient Greek ἅλλομαι (hállomai, “to jump”).^[12] Wiktionary calls its origin uncertain, since that pre-form should regularly have given Latin /o/ rather than /a/ in the root.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy): at Cardeña the monks con lunbres e con candelas al corral dieron salto “with lights and candles rushed out into the yard”.^[13] Menéndez Pidal shows that dar salto in the poem means “to jump”, “to attack” or “to go out”, and auer salto de uno “to be attacked by someone”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The sense “attack, assault” was common in Old Spanish: the fueros punish the man que salto diere against a neighbour, and in Berceo the Moors davan salto a los matinos “fell on early travellers”.^[13][15] Alfonso X's prose has both the jump and the assault, and the phrase a saltos “by leaps”.^[16] In the early Caribbean salto was a slaving raid on the natives: armadas y saltos in Santa Marta in 1528, hazer salto in Las Casas.^[17][18]

The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the act of jumping, a high place that must be jumped (ironically, of very deep precipices), the ground covered by a jump and a sudden passage from one thing to another.^[19] In 1817 the Academy also listed the obsolete senses “assault”, “heel of a shoe” and “pillage”, and the phrases salto del corazón and salto de mata “flight for fear of punishment”.^[20] Salto de agua, a fall in a river used to drive mills, appears in 1869.^[21] In the Río de la Plata and much of Spanish America salto alone is a waterfall, as in the Salto del Guairá.^[22][23][24] Today the DLE adds parachute jumps and the athletic and ski events.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy).^[13][2]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar tells how a fish dyo salto “leapt” at Tobias.^[13]
• c. 1235 – the Fuero de Alcalá fines the neighbour que salto diere on another.^[13]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria has a saltos “by leaps”.^[16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin saltus.^[25]
• 1528 – first record from the Americas, for raids in Santa Marta.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the jump and the precipice.^[19]
• 1869 – the Academy records salto de agua.^[21]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and the sense “very deep precipice”.^[26]

Meanings

Noun

1. A jump or leap; the act of jumping: Cruzó el arroyo de un salto.^[3][1]
2. A high place suited for jumping, or one that can only be crossed by jumping.^[3]
3. A very deep precipice.^[3]
4. A fall of a large volume of water, especially one used in an industrial plant; a waterfall.^[3][1]
5. The distance between the point where one jumps and the point where one lands.^[3]
6. A passage from one thing to another that skips the steps between.^[3]
7. An omission of part of a text in reading or copying it.^[3]
8. A promotion to a post above the next one up.^[3]
9. A violent palpitation of the heart.^[3]
10. A parachute jump from a plane or helicopter.^[3]
11. Leapfrog (pídola).^[3]
12. (sports) A jumping event in athletics, in height or length.^[3][1]
13. (sports) Ski jumping.^[3]

Word family

• saltear

Related words

• saltar
• soto
• asalto
• Latin saltus

Usage notes

Common phrases are salto de agua “waterfall, hydroelectric fall”, salto atrás “step backwards” and triple salto “triple jump”.^[3][1] The city and department of Salto in Uruguay bear the name.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. saltar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. salto
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. salto
6. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. salto
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. saltus
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5861
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 681
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3158
11. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. salto
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. salto
14. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 428
15. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 688
16. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. salto
17. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. salto
18. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. salto
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 30
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 782
21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 698
22. ^ Granada, Daniel (1890), Vocabulario rioplatense razonado, 2nd ed., Montevideo: Imprenta Rural, p. 311
23. ^ Bayo, Ciro (1910), Vocabulario criollo-español sud-americano, Madrid: Hernando, p. 203
24. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 730
25. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 413
26. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 954